Jeramy McIntyre – Esports Manager, WoW, at Blizzard: “The Players Are the Rockstars, They Are the Superstars”

Recently, we took some time to look at World of WarCraft esports and its development throughout the years based on five stats. With this follow up, we want to share what we have learned about WoW esports in 2018 from speaking to Jeramy McIntyre, esports manager WoW at Blizzard.

Content Is King and Is Made to Engage a Wider Audience

“Blizzard Esports produces a lot of esports content and I think that if you’re looking at the programs holistically, we’ve always been looking for ways to improve them across the board and be able to reach out to the community and reach our target audience.” says McIntyre.

While it is unclear how much of a focus WoW esports will be compared to Blizzard’s other games, the game’s esports programs have seen an accelerated growth. For McIntyre, the reasons for this growth are the overall industry growth as well as “the success and the return we see from the community, just being more engaged and really consuming the content, and being happy with what we’re producing.”

With content being one of the key success factors to an engaged community, those responsible for WoW esports at Blizzard put a lot of effort in thinking about how content is delivered. According to McIntyre, Blizzard tries to engage the largest audience possible, which means content is not only catered to active players, but also to people who simply enjoy watching esports and anyone who has ever played WoW over the course of the last 13 years. If people watch and follow esports, they are supposed to understand what is going on and the different levels of play, even though they don’t play WoW. For those who have more exposure to WoW, content should become a very intimate thing.

Players Are Rockstars and Esports Programs Are Designed to Make Them Shine

For McIntyre “the players are the rockstars, they are the superstars.” Esports programs are designed to highlight them and make sure the community knows who is at the top of their skill and at the top of the game. When designing esports programs, which is not be confused with designing raids and actual game content, McIntyre communicates with players participating in the programs. Players are kept up-to-date with the plan for the year and have opportunities to voice their thoughts for both, individual events and the overall plan. These feedback loops help with program design and can influence what McIntyre calls micro-decisions.

Live Events Are Important for Two Reasons

McIntyre considers live events important for two reasons. Firstly, it helps with more effective storytelling. Having players at a LAN event allows Blizzard to highlight them while offering the community a direct way to engage with their stars. Live events help the community to see and understand who the individuals at the top of the game are.

Secondly, LAN events help to visualize integrity and add an additional layer of legitimacy. When people are able to physically see the player playing and the admins looking over their shoulders, the audience knows that there is a high amount of integrity, McIntyre says.

Overall Sentiment Is Important for Measuring the Program’s Success

To measure success of the program, the team looks at several metrics, which will also influence decisions for the program. While there are hard metrics, such as viewership, content consumption, traffic and engagement, the program is also measured in a more philosophical way based on overall sentiment. Sentiment is analyzed to look at whether the program and its content strategy is successful in highlighting the players and in making them superstars. Do fans rally behind them and does the program help players to increase their following?

With expanding the esports program, there will be more competition, so Blizzard also considers its players’ skill levels as a metric and reviews if they are getting better over time.

That said, there are a lot of thoughts and work going into WoW esports in 2018. Apparently, Blizzard seems to care about its game’s scene.

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